Sometimes Awkward Things Happen to Nice People and Sometimes Nice People do Awkward Things

When I was in grade school, my friends and I would tell each other about our craziest dreams. I learned later that one of the best dreamers, never really dreamed her dreams at all. She made them all up!!! I thought that was crazy, because I've never had to worry about making up crazy dreams or events, they just happen to me. In college, my roommates and I even created a signal to help out in all our the awkward moments. It was the sign for come and save me from the awkwardness. Lately, I've thought I need to bring that signal back because nice people need other nice people in awkward moments.
Awkward Moment 1
Just the other day I parked in the underground parking downtown, as I hurried into a few places to look at paintings. After finishing in my allotted one hour time, I hurried to the exit and reached into my pocket for the parking ticket. Unfortunately, it was no where to be found. I fumbled through all of my pockets and then sat down on a couch and went through my purse. No ticket! I figured this had to happen to other people, so it was probably not that big of a deal. I then walked out to the garage and found the parking attendant on his little golf cart and explained my predicament. He had me look through all of my pockets and purse again with him watching. "Maybe it's in your car." he offered. And so, we walked over to my car, and that's when I discovered I was missing my car key! I tried to act calm as I fumbled through my purse and mindlessly chattered. Finally, after no success, I smiled at the dear man and broke the news to him. "You know how a minute ago I didn't think there could be anything worse than losing my ticket, well it's all about perspective. You see, now I've lost my car key." He just stared and reiterated, "You mean you lost your car key too?" I smiled and told him I was going back in to retrace my steps. He told me to make sure and look for my ticket while I was at it. Luckily, I found the key right there on the couch, but as expected, no ticket. However, I ran back jubilantly and drove my car down to the gate with the man blazing the trail ahead in his golf cart. Unfortunately, something was wrong with his pass and even though he kept swiping and hitting things, the gate would not let us by. As he was working, my eyes fell upon the words "Lost ticket $20." I moaned and looked up at the old man. He smiled. " Don't worry we don't want you to have to pay $20, so we'll figure this out." (I love nice people.) After several more attempts, he just shrugged and suggested we go over to the other gate. "If you'll give me the $2 for your time, I can get you out of this one." He smiled and then there was an awkward moment of silence because you see I didn't have $2 in cash. And so, I put on a brave smile and calmly explained this to him. He just looked at me, and in that awkward moment, I remembered my change compartment and told him to wait. I then proceeded to count out nickels, dimes and pennies. I believe the old man wanted to throw his hands up and say, "Why me!" but he remained calm and continued to try and get his darn pass to work. After countless attempts, he did throw up his hands and in that awkward moment I smiled and told him I had a dollar twenty one, plus more pennies. He scratched his head and backed away from my hands filled with pennies. "Don't worry about it. Maybe we can just have you go around the gate right here. I think there is just enough room that you might be able to make it." And so, although I am a law abiding citizen, under his guidance, we maneuvered my little car around the gate. I smiled in gratitude and once again held out my bulging hand of pennies and nickels. He quickly backed away and waved his hands. I think that was his signal of "Please, please leave."

Awkward Moment 2
The other week I found myself at a BBQ next to a guy who was sitting a little too close and staring a little too intently. It caused me to chaff my nose and mouth from all of my nervous rubbing at whatever I assumed he was staring at. After some awkward conversation about my eye color, I decided to do us both a favor and leave. I quickly got up to go, but faster than the speed of light, he grabbed my hand in a surprisingly vice like grip. "Please just stay 10 more minutes to talk. Please." Now, I'm sure he was a real nice guy who just hadn't figured out personal space or something, but I felt pretty awkward. So trying to muster all of my calm and casualness, I began chattering about why I had to leave, all the while trying to pull my hand away without making too much of a scene. Unfortunately, this wasn't working very well, and I was pretty much glued to the spot. I wasn't quite sure what to do. I could break out of the hold using my self defense instructor's move, but that might be a little too extreme, and I certainly wasn't going to just sit down and talk for ten more minutes. And so, I just stood there hoping the awkward sweating of my hand would soon allow me to get away more easily. Then out of nowhere a girl popped up and exclaimed, "Oh my goodness it is you!!!! When you first came in I thought it was you, but I wasn't sure. It is so good to see you!" Then she proceeded to give me a hug and pull my arm away from the guy. "We have to catch up. Let's go over here." And so, she pulled me across the yard, and I looked up into the face of. . . . . someone I have never met before in my life. Although, I was relieved, I felt awkward again, because I had no idea who this girl was who thought we were so tight. Thankfully, she just smiled at me and said,"Sorry, I have no idea who you are, but I just saw what was happening and although it was kind of funny to watch, I could tell you felt awkward and needed some help." I let out a sigh of relief and gave her another big hug of appreciation and thanks.
And so, when my friend who continued to say awkward things at a party looked at me and said, "Can I run things by you, before I say them out loud, so you can make sure they're not awkward." I agreed. Because although, he obviously doesn't know I'm not his best pick, everyone needs someone to help them out in an awkward situation, especially nice people.

The Evil Teacher

Every year, each student in my class writes a story that we publish. I tell them to use their imagination to make it something really great. After brainstorming, my students brought up their story maps with their idea. There were stories about animals, sports, candy, aliens, and then one of my students came up to my desk with a huge grin on his face. I looked down at his story map titled: The Evil Teacher. I looked up at him, he looked down at the floor as his grin turned into a chuckle. Then I looked down at the list of characters and sure enough my name was first with a great description. I cleared my throat, and he responded, "We are suppose to use our imagination right?" I smiled and gave him back his story with the promise that I would get first edits each day, in which he always handed me the story with the words, "Remember you said imagination right?" Now I must admit, I've never wanted to be a villain, but a ruby crown and long nails that allow you to open up a nail salon are tempting and seeing a student enjoy writing is priceless.
Here are a few of my favorite descriptions of me from his story:
"Dave!!" Miss R thundered.
"Put down your stupid book and pay attention!"
"Yes teacher, I mean Miss R, I mean madam!" Dave stumbled.
"Alright then, get working on your assignment." Miss R said with an unholy tone. Miss R staggered over to her desk and sat down. "Stupid little kids. I'd eat them all alive, if I were allowed too." Miss R mumbled. Then Miss R had an evil, but brilliant plan. What if I make the most loved actors in the world, evil! Then everyone will love me! Miss R thought to herself as she rubbed her hands together evilly, with a crooked smile.. . . . . .

Suddenly, Miss R appeared out of nowhere. She was wearing long purple robes that touched the ground. She wore a bronze crown covered in rubies. She began cackling. But what caught Dave's eye most about her, is she had nails like Freddie Kruger. Her nails were so sharp and long she could open her own nail salon business. She had a devilish look on her face.
"Hello victims." Miss R said.

I'm sure you're dying to know how it ended, however, as an evil teacher I can't tell you. I can only cackle and scrape my enormous nails together.

Oh How Lovely was the Morning

After the hustle and bustle of NYC, we were all excited to go upstate to beautiful Palmyra, NY. I must say I am a small town girl at heart and the lush foliage and home town atmosphere was delightful. As we drove from NYC to Palmrya, rain poured down from the sky. We reached our hotel and hurriedly ran inside as the steady beat of the rain pelted the ground. Then we ate a quick dinner and headed to the outdoor Hill Cumorah Pageant. This may seem like a highly illogical thing to do, but I grew up hearing about the miracle of The Hill Cumorah Pageant, and I believe life isn't always about logic. My grandma often told us about her long ago trip to The Hill Cumorah Pageant, and how it began to rain the morning of the pageant. As she voiced her concerns aloud about the rain, a lady from the town spoke up, "Oh don't worry about the rain. I don't know what those Mormons have got, but it always stops raining for the pageant." Grandma said it made her proud to be a Mormon and sure enough that night the rain stopped. Well, we were all ready for our own little miracle, but while we knew it would stop raining when the pageant started, we knew there was a long time of rain until the pageant started. So we took out our umbrellas, and dutifully sat for about an hour and a half as rain ping ponged off them. Shortly before the pageant, we went to the refreshment stand for some popcorn, and there we also picked up some ponchos. We slipped them on and began to munch on our popcorn. My brother looked up at my poncho and shared with me the news that there were actually arm holes in the poncho. And so just after the opening prayer, I took off my poncho in search of the arm holes. I was twisting and turning the poncho, when the actors came on stage, the music began and. . . . . . the rain stopped. Perhaps a highly unlikely thing to happen at that moment, but not when miracles are concerned. I put my poncho on the ground and stayed dry the whole night. That night I was reminded of the beauty that miracles are everywhere. It seems we spend our lives searching for something miraculous, when the truth is tender mercies and blessings are occurring all around us. We only need to open our eyes to see them. This set the tone for the rest of our trip to Palmyra, as we visited places where truly miraculous things happened, things that logic cannot explain.


Here we are before the pageant waiting for the rain to stop.



The beautiful rainless pageant.



The Hill Cumorah pageant was so good, we went a second night. This time there wasn't a rain cloud in sight.



The next day we went to all of the LDS church history sites. It was amazing to walk in the places so important to the restoration of the LDS church, places where the Prophet Joseph Smith walked. Here we are at the Smith Family home.



Then we walked down to their second home and looked out upon their farm.



As we walked back from the Smith family farm, we were able to see a beacon of hope: The Palmyra Temple.



Later, we walked up the path to the Hill Cumorah where the Prophet Joseph Smith Jr. was given the golden plates by the Angel Moroni. Being in these places, gave me the chance to gain a stronger testimony of the events that took place there.



The beautiful promise from The Book of Mormon.



Our family walked, pondered, and felt the love of our Heavenly Father in The Sacred Grove. The minute we walked in we felt an overwhelming feeling of peace. I know that this is truly a miraculous place, a place where the Prophet Joseph Smith saw God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. It is a place of prayer, of power, and of love.



The Sacred Grove left me singing "Oh How Lovely was the Morning"and meaning every word of it, because it is truly a place of peace and miracles.

The Big Apple

Ahhhh. . .. The Big Apple. How could I resist a trip there with my parents and brother? And so, after a red eye flight, we rubbed our red eyes and put on big smiles for The Today Show, then jumped on a double decker bus for a delightful narration of the city. We hopped off in China Town to bargain for t-shirts, bags, and hats, took pictures of ground zero, St. Paul's Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Wall Street, Radio City Music Hall, and pretty much every tourist site available.


Next, we made our way to Rockefeller center to go to the Top of the Rock. It was beautiful to look out on the city. We timed it just as dusk was approaching, so we could see the city at day and night.



Of course, Broadway left us "dancing through life" with nothing but "happy talk" for these amazing musicals.


Since I haven't made it to Egypt yet, we were lucky to visit the amazing Egyptian exhibit at the Met.


Ah. . . . . life on a double decker bus.


How could we not get a picture of the"Big" piano at FAO Schwartz?


My friend Rustin hooked us up with all of the latest and greatest places to eat. This is a picture of the huge cookies he raved about, although we brought my parents back hard,little, dry ones from the supermarket for a little fun. My dad groaned at the thought of us paying $4 for each small, dry bit of gunk. My poor mom tried to be extra positive about them, but she was fighting a losing battle. We were all grateful to pull out the huge, chunkers of delight.




It is pretty evident in New York who is a tourist, but why not make things even easier. We all donned on these fabuolous I love NY shirts, that my mom and I thought would be darling for a family photo. (And do they not look great?) My dad and brother gave in, and we smiled as our little tour group roamed around the fascinating Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.


Our shirts were so moving that this street performer played a song just for us, New York, New York.


You meet all kinds of people in New York. Which means we shouldn't have been surprised when Bartholdi the sculptor of The Statue of Liberty plopped down at our table to visit. Unfortunately, I got the giggles and ended up with a stomachache from laughing so hard. I would tell you what was so funny, but as with most hilarious events I'm not sure the hilarity of the situation can be adequately expressed.



Of course, I had to get a picture with my fame. I even threw caution to the wind and bought a necklace there. Mind you it was up on the third floor, the one floor which only causes small gasps at the price, rather than fainting.




A visit to New York would not be complete without a trip to Central Park. I love the sanctuary away from all the busyness. Central Park is beautiful and huge, although it is only the 3rd largest park in New York. (Those tour buses help get all the facts for you.) We spent a whole morning there and were grateful for a small sprinkling and slightly cooler temperature, compared to the heat wave of 100 degrees with humidity that New York happened to have while we were there.


Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge at night was a must.

Finally, we threw our hands up and said goodbye to New York City and headed to upper state New York, which is another story for another day.

Don't Judge a Home by its Flower Pot

People say, "Don't judge a book by its cover." I say, "Don't judge a home by its flower pot." You see, I have been working really hard to give my house a little personality. However, we've had some minor problems. For example, a friend offered to hook up my new DVD player and TV. He ended up tripping on the cord, landing on the DVD player, and completely breaking it. The other cord broke off in the TV, and yep, it broke the TV. Next, he tried to help hang a picture, he drilled incorrectly into the wall and the picture leaned, so he drilled just below it to fix it. Both holes then converged into one huge hole that still did not work. After that, I put away all tools and decided to work on something that couldn't be messed up, Flowers. You put them in a pot, water, and beauty, or so I thought.
Well, I looked all around until I found these beautiful flowers.

I brought them home and planted them delighted with the beauty surrounding my house. I was also relieved that nothing had gone wrong. After looking at their beauty, I decided to buy some more. Just as I was running out, a cold, dark storm began to blow in. I hurriedly ran to the store but was soon confused. Where my once beautiful flowers had been, I only saw weeds. However, on closer inspection, I noticed the weeds were actually my beautiful flowers closed up from lack of sun. 'Oh no!' I thought and ran home to see this

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" I cried. "Not again." My roommate came home to find me sitting on the front step in dismay. She took a look at the flowers, "Oh, hmmmm, those are . . " "the most beautiful flowers." I finished. She stared. "Seriously, they are beautiful." She continued to stare. "I mean it, when the sun is out they are beautiful." She didn't believe me, so I waited until the next day when the sun came out, and pulled her outside. My roommate was shocked. "Oh my goodness," she exclaimed. "They really are beautiful, but you would never know it when the sun is gone. Wait, a minute" she smiled, "You can give a lesson on this in Relief Society. You can talk all about the beauty inside, and how you really need to get to know someone to see them for who they truly are just like your flowers." I stopped her, "But nobody is going to see the beauty inside these flowers, because nobody ever comes over in the daytime."I argued. And with that encouraging thought, I can't decide whether or not to keep these beautiful to me, but ugly to everyone else flowers. However, I think we've all learned a good lesson: if you ever see a home with ugly flowers outside, don't judge too quickly because inside they really may be beautiful.

Unfriended

Facebook Profile Picture #5

I'm not a very good facebook friend, nor am I a very interesting facebook friend. (Which is why this is my fifth profile picture in 3 years.) I'm not on facebook a lot, so I don't make a lot of comments to others, and I don't comment a lot about myself. However, this semester I found myself writing extremely long papers that required many breaks, and so I soon found myself frequenting the lives of all of my friends on facebook. There is something hopeful about knowing that even though you may be writing an examination of curriculum today, someone else is happily eating M&M's, watching their favorite T.V. show, or getting married. Soon I began to get sucked into the political, sporty, random, and awkward posts and pictures of friends. During finals week, I found myself writing a lot more and checking the lives of everyone else a lot more. It was during that time, I noticed one of my huge political friends hadn't had a lot to say in a while, which was pretty weird. It was then that I decided to take a look at his profile and see what was going on. That is when I noticed that I no longer had a friend by that name. Slightly stunned, I assumed what any nice friend would assume, he had quit facebook. Now I was about to let it go, but I've always been a curious person, and so just to prove my theory correct I checked on a mutual friend's friend list. And that is where I found him. Shocked, I began to check out other friends and there he was in all of their friend columns. Which made me wonder how we were no longer friends. Had we had a big fight, a misunderstanding, some name calling? Nope, I hadn't talked to him since he asked to be my friend, and we visited like the old friends we were. Which makes me ask the questions, "Who unfriends friends they asked to be friends with? What makes you unfriend a friend?" And the big question, "Are you an unfriender?" (Although, unfriend is not a real word, it just seems to fit.) And so as I write this post, it occurs to me that I may have been unfriended by others who have purposely hit the delete button on my profile picture. However, I guess when I settle down and think a little more rationally, I realize that really anyone who I don't know is gone, and anyone who wants me gone, probably doesn't deserve to be in my friend column anyway.

The Couch Analogy

Analogies are on the end of the year test, so I'm use to helping young people make sense of seemingly baffling comparisons. However, it has been a while since a completely random stranger has tried to give me an analogy to happiness in my life. Which I suppose is the cue for the random furniture owner's couch analogy story:
You see I found myself the proud owner of a beautiful new home. A beautiful new home however, that had no beautiful new couch. (Or other furniture, but this story is about the couch.) I searched high and low, and yet I still couldn't find the couch I wanted. Trying to sell the fun of sitting on the floor to my roommate wasn't working well, and so the pressure was on to either find my perfect couch or pick up a loaner from D.I soon.
The afternoon after I moved in, my parents and I drove off in quest for this couch. We happened upon a new store, which we quickly scoured with no luck, until our eyes lighted on a couch that made both my mother and I say, "Hmmm." (Which was much better than most couches were getting.) Next, we began the intricate couch testing process. We sat, took the pillows to the windows, sat, searched the store for throws and other pillows to bring out different colors on the couch, sat, looked at it from every angle, sat, discussed every selling point and every flaw, and then, of course, we sat. 45 minutes after all of this testing, I took one last picture and told the owner we might be back.
He and my dad who had been visiting like old friends during our couch testing looked at me, "Why wouldn't you want this couch?" I looked up at him, "Well I like this couch, but I don't know if I love this couch, so I want to keep looking." This caused him to smile big and say, "Dear, can I ask you another question?" Well I have dealt with a lot of salesman lately, so I thought I had heard every question. I smiled back, "Sure," Then he began, "Are you married?" Like I said, I "thought" I had heard every question. Not figuring out how couches and marriage correlated, I assumed he had a rich, handsome son he wanted to set me up with because he was so taken with my couch testing skills. I smiled, "No." "Well dear, let me just give you a piece of advice. You see buying a couch is an awful lot like finding a husband. Eventually, you just have to make a choice and choose one. Dear, there is no perfect couch. Just like there is no perfect guy. We are all broken. (Which I really hoped the couch was not.) The trick is to just choose a couch or a guy you like bring him home and break him in." He finished and smiled real big. I wasn't quite sure how to respond to this cheering sales pitch on couches and husbands, so I just stared ahead. My dad, a real big shopper, smiled, "That's right, I like this couch. Let's get it." I looked at them both and smiled, "If I'm buying a couch, I'm buying a couch I really love, so we're going to keep looking."
My dad sighed, and we were off to the next store, a store I had looked in several times. However, today as I was walking over to the tables, I was stopped in my tracks at the sight of the perfect couch, MY PERFECT COUCH. That's right, a couch with the color, texture and style I had envisioned. After cheering out loud, I looked at my mother and smiled. "We have to go back to the other furniture store."My mom looked perplexed. "Why?" "Because, I want to go back to Mr. There is no Perfect Couch/Husband and have a few words with him. (I got up on my soap box.) I'm going to tell him how glad I am that I didn't settle for his okay couch because I found my perfect couch. And I'm going to tell him that sometimes when you're looking for a couch or husband it might just take a little more time, patience, and work." Yeah, I was on a roll. And I may have gone back, except this other store actually had two slightly different styles of my perfect couch. Which caused me to walk back and forth between them for an hour and a half. My mom exhausted exclaimed, "I sure hope you never fall in love with two perfect guys because you'll never be able to choose."
However, I did choose a couch, and I love it. Although, I must admit Mr. Couch Analogy was in part right, it wasn't exactly perfect. That's why I've spent weeks looking for new pillows. And I guess it's true nobody is perfect either, which is why I still smile at nice guy's unfunny jokes because maybe they are the perfect couch, they just need new pillows.